


The Immigration Issue

by Blame Canada (OneHitWondersAnonymous), orphan_account



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Minor Character Death, POV Alternating, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 13:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10967916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHitWondersAnonymous/pseuds/Blame%20Canada, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Coming face-to-face with himself was a classic trope that Kyle found unfortunately predictable in true South Park fashion, and his classmates were inclined to agree. What they hadn’t expected was a flood of countless copies of themselves in all-different iterations, dubbed ‘immigrants’ per Cartman’s request, that all wanted them dead. With no other option but to kill or be killed, the gang is transported through a whirlwind of worlds and movie tropes the likes of which they’d never seen— and many that they wished they’d never seen.





	The Immigration Issue

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This is loosely based on a since-deleted fic of the same name.  
> 2\. There are no major character deaths, but there will be lots of minor character deaths.

Weird stuff happened less and less as you got older. Unless you had the immaturity of Randy Marsh or the sheer drive to torment of Mr. Garrison, it became easily avoidable. It also became necessary to be avoided. Four little kids blowing up a meth lab gets you a police badge; four teenage boys doing it gets you arrested. It didn’t help that Kenny had tried to smuggle some out so his parents could ‘sample rival product.’

Maybe weird shit still happened to some people; Kyle had chilled out. Cartman, of course, had aforementioned immaturity _and_ drive to torment; there was no hope for him. Kenny was doing his own thing, and, even if Kyle didn’t support it, he allowed it to happen without question. Stan got antsy whenever another Christmas passed without an adventure, but Kyle didn’t miss them. Mr. Hankey wasn’t as fun after the HUMANCENTiPAD.

What no one ever focused on was that most of those adventures, at the time, kind of sucked ass. He got hemorrhoids when stressed, was farted on more than a reasonable amount, and had his fucking video game console kidnapped by the not-government government. His credit score would never recover, and he had thought about the HUMANCENTiPAD more than enough for the day. He felt a little bad for becoming Craig, but Kyle was ready for boring.

It had been one year, three months, and two days since Kyle had been dragged on an adventure. He had almost engaged when Cartman started a Ponzi scheme, but that fell apart as fast as it began. Kyle had even chosen to walk by himself during the school’s mandatory field trip to hike in a nearby forest rather than accompany all the other boys to watch Cartman convince Tweek to dive from a waterfall into what was clearly more rock than water. There was no chance Tweek would end up doing it anyway. Most of the students in the grade still bought into Cartman’s stupid ideas, even if just for the chance to watch them fail horribly.

Kyle was a little too surprised to hear twigs crackling under someone’s feet considering how tiny the forest was. He turned around to look for the noise, and the footsteps got rapidly faster. When he whipped back around in alarm, he came face-to-face with a perfect replica of himself. Well, it wasn’t exactly perfect; Kyle would never not wear his hat in public. He had worn it all summer, and this Kyle clearly lacked a respectful amount of shame.

The other Kyle raised a gun without speaking, and Kyle guessed he would have been scared if this hadn’t felt so typical. Instead he settled for closing his eyes for a second and muttering, “Oh, God dammit,” before waving the impostor off and saying, “shoo!”

His impostor looked at him skeptically, waving the gun a little in front of his face. “I think you should be more scared. You might be the stupidest one I’ve killed yet.”

Kyle sighed and nodded a little, accepting that he would probably have to see this adventure through to the finish. The other Kyle looked a little worried that Kyle had lost his mind, and he didn’t notice that Kyle was moving until his knee connected with his groin. It wasn’t the most masculine way to fight, but Kyle wanted this to end more than he wanted to be honorable.

He retrieved the gun quickly as the other Kyle took a tumble and frowned at it in disapproval before training it on the intruder. “Did Eric Cartman pay you to do this?”

Even for Cartman, it was a little far-fetched to think that he would pay someone to clone Kyle just to immediately kill him, but it didn’t seem impossible. Maybe the other Kyle was to make sure no one knew he was dead. Kyle couldn’t predict what went on in that fucked up mind.

The other Kyle looked immediately mistrustful at Cartman’s name, and Kyle was glad to know that they were on the same page about something. Hesitantly, he asked, “Did you do something to him?”

“Not yet,” Kyle said solemnly. He looked down at the gun thoughtfully. “Is this actually loaded?”

It was like looking in an especially scornful mirror. “How would I kill you without a loaded gun?”

Kyle shook it, hoping he could hear the bullets inside. He had no idea what he was listening for. He had thought it might have been a prop gun to scare him and see if he’d piss his pants or beg for his life or something equally horrible. Out loud, he mused, “So Cartman actually wanted to kill me.” He wasn’t shocked.

“Eric _will_ kill you,” the other Kyle said emphatically.

He stopped examining the gun, pointing it back at the doppelgänger. “Why are you working for _Cartman_? What’s the point of dressing up as me?”

“Oh, my God, you think this is just a costume?” the other Kyle asked with open derision. “Have you ever seen this realistic a costume in your life?”

“Yes,” Kyle answered simply. “Did you see Heidi Klum’s Jessica Rabbit costume?” He had seen it. A lot of times.

“Probably not,” he said in a weird voice. “I do think she probably didn’t look _exactly_ like a cartoon character. Do you hang out with Kenny or something?”

“You learned my backstory, too?” Kyle was a little flattered by the dedication. Cartman could have forced him into some stupid plot with much less. “I’m really having trouble getting what he intended for you.”

“I intended to kill you,” the impostor said slowly and clearly like he was explaining this to an idiot. “Eric is _entirely_ not involved.”

“This is his gun,” Kyle said. “It has the guy who plays Ron Swanson’s signature on it because all he was carrying was a gun and silver Sharpie.” In retrospect, he wasn’t sure which part of that situation was the stupidest.

The other Kyle smiled fondly. It gave him a really uncomfortable feeling. “Your Eric did that, too?”

“My Er- Oh, God dammit, there are more of you, aren’t there?” Kyle cursed again. He _wished_ this was some scheme of Cartman’s. This must be an actual thing that was happening to the town, and those were always so much worse. “Is he trying to kill my Cartman?”

“Someone is,” he said bluntly. “Killing yourself is always the worst, I think. Somehow I always end up doing it, though.”

“Okay, well, not this time,” Kyle said, struggling not to feel freaked out. “If anything, I’m probably going to kill you. So.”

“You’re not going to be able to save him,” the other Kyle said cryptically. “They never are.”

“I’m not going to _try_ to save him,” Kyle said. “Is he important for something? _Should_ I save him?”

A look Kyle didn’t recognize, something like hurt and disappointment, crossed his face for a second. “ _Eric_ is important.”

“Really?” Kyle was drawing a blank. “What for?”

It was deeply troubling to see that much affection and honesty on his own face. Hell, it was weird to hear his voice call Cartman by his first name. The other Kyle widened his eyes to demonstrate the importance of what he was saying and gushed, “We’d die without Eric.”

Oh, no.

Kyle almost dropped his gun hand down to his side. “There’s a solid chance we die _because_ of Cartman. I’d be _surprised_ if I didn’t die because of Cartman.”

The clone smiled knowingly. “I remember when I used to think that way. Eric wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Kyle was about to tick off all the people Cartman had already killed, directly or indirectly, when that same goddamn voice shouted, “Kyle? Kyle! I need you to undo something I did!”

Kyle sighed in resignation just as the other Kyle pushed himself up on his elbow, face lighting up hopefully. He called to Cartman by his first name again, and Kyle interrupted with an ear-splitting, “ _Cartman!_ ” His duplicate looked at him like he had just interrupted a tender moment.

Now that he was listening, Kyle could hear the stomping through the underbrush clearly, and he wondered how Cartman had managed to sneak into earshot without him noticing. From the direction of some trees (so, essentially, any direction), Cartman’s voice continued, “Kevin’s bleeding like a bitch, Kyle!” The sound of stomping grew faster and clearer. “The waterfall was _not_ a good idea; I admit it! Come fix my shit.”

Cartman emerged in the small clearing, and, without thinking, Kyle pointed the gun at him. It was, honest to God, an instinctive reaction. Really. “You fucking idiot!” Kyle shouted, temporarily forgetting his carbon copy on the forest floor. “You had Kevin jump off the waterfall?”

“It’s not like I pushed him,” Cartman said defensively. “Where’d you get a gun? I didn’t think you were cool.”

Kyle raised an eyebrow, and Cartman admitted, “I might’ve told him we had all done it while he wasn’t there, and he’d be a pussy if he didn’t do it. But it was his own choice, Kyle!”

There was a sudden movement from the ground, and Kyle had the gun back on his twin before he could think. His reflexes were really impressive. Damn. Cartman jumped back in surprise; Kyle could see the moment in which Cartman realized who exactly was lying at Kyle’s feet. An expression of disbelief and amusement spread over his face, and he looked back at Kyle with open delight.

“Are you selling him?”

The other Kyle rolled onto his back, propping himself up on his elbows to gaze at Cartman with palpable emotion. The love in his eyes lasted for only a few seconds before he began to look put off by something. “Your Eric is _fat_ ,” he said finally.

“Ay!” Cartman yelped. “Teach him manners, Kyle.”

“Honesty is important,” Kyle said without much interest. “You didn’t have anything to do with this?”

Cartman walked towards the duplicate, squatting down with intense effort to peer closely at his face. The other Kyle clenched his jaw and stared back stubbornly. A flicker of confusion passed over Cartman’s features as the look-alike leaned into him a little, and Cartman jumped back like a cat whose tail had been trodden on before he could get much closer.

“Your knees crack when you squat,” Kyle reminded him.

Cartman shot him a dirty look. “Priorities, Kyle. Priorities.” He kicked at the facsimile lightly. “Stand up, dickwad. And don’t come near me.”

Kyle was about to protest that he’d had him on the ground for a reason when the other Kyle pushed himself to his feet. Cartman hummed to himself as he rummaged through his backpack, and the two Kyles exchanged identical looks of confusion. Cartman reemerged with a gun just like the one Kyle was holding.

“Open up for the exterminator, bitch,” Cartman said darkly, pointing the gun at the other Kyle’s forehead.

Before he could pull the trigger, Kyle stepped in front of his doppelgänger protectively. “We should figure out why he’s here, dude! I think there’s a you out there!”

“Then we’ll kill that one t- Oh, fuck, Kyle!” Cartman reached a hand out automatically as a pair of arms wrapped around Kyle’s shoulders and pulled him to the ground. The other Kyle was on top of him in an instant, punching and kicking and biting and fighting exactly like how Kyle would have expected himself to fight. The gun was ripped out of his hand and thrown to the opposite side of the clearing. In the scuffle, he had his hat torn off and tossed on the ground. They rolled over a few times, each fighting for dominance until Kyle scrambled back and forced himself to his feet.

The impostor Kyle did the same, watching him warily with chest heaving. Kyle instinctively looked around for his hat, locating it cast on the ground near the other Kyle’s feet. With growing horror, he looked up into the spitting image of his own face, and the intruder grinned triumphantly.

Part of Kyle wanted to bemoan being stuck in the most common movie trope of all time, but Cartman’s gun seemed too pressing an issue. He switched its target between him and his copy a few times before settling on Kyle.

“We’re not keeping two Kyles,” Cartman said decisively. “I don’t much care which one of you I kill. There can only be one.”

Both Kyles pointed at each other and said, “Kill him!”

“Or,” Cartman continued. “I could kill both of you and say you did it to each other.”

Kyle scoffed. “You’re not going to kill me, Cartman.”

Cartman glared at him suspiciously. “That’s an awfully affectionate thing to say, _Kyle_. Rather unlike you, don’t you think?”

“Do it, you fat fuck!” the other Kyle yelled. Kyle’s head snapped in his direction to give him a betrayed look, but the replica was maintaining perfect character. “Did you even remember that Kevin might be _dying_?”

“He probably won’t,” Cartman said in an off-hand way. “Alright, now. Let’s see.” He pointed the gun towards the other Kyle. “Make your case.”

“My case?” He repeated dumbly.

Cartman waved the gun impatiently. “Your case about why I should kill this one.” He waved it at Kyle, and Kyle scowled back at him.

The other Kyle shook his head. “You should just know, dude! Look at my eyes, and tell me I’m not Kyle.”

“Oh, come on,” Kyle moaned. “Would I _ever_ say that, Cartman?”

“Have your instincts ever let you down?” the replica prodded. These were unfair tactics; he wasn’t trying to convince Cartman that he was the original Kyle. He was just trying to win Cartman over to his side, and it would probably work with that egotistical fuck.

Cartman nodded thoughtfully and pointed the gun back at Kyle. “Your turn.”

Kyle gave a shrill, disbelieving laugh. “You heard all that, and you think I’m the one who was _complimenting_ you?”

The smile he received was absolutely chilling. Kyle was trained not to be frightened by anything Cartman did or said, but, of the two murder threats he’d received that day, this was the more intimidating. “You might not remember this, _fake Kyle_ , but we’ve already _had_ creepy doppelgängers, and when they came, my dear friend Kyle here,” he gestured with the gun to the other Kyle, “wanted to shoot _me_ and keep the other Cartman.”

“It wouldn’t have killed you!” Kyle cried defensively. In addendum, he muttered, “Just send you to an evil alternate universe.”

This was a lot worse than Kyle had guessed. Cartman was going to take revenge for something he and Stan had done as children. It wasn’t even the same; that other Cartman had been awesome and nice and clearly superior. Kyle felt that, bare minimum, he probably tied with this other person.

His smile widened. “How do you remember that, fake Kyle?”

“Don’t be a little cocksucker. You know Stan will be able to tell the difference, and he’ll kick your ass.”

“But _you_ ,” Cartman said slowly, “will already be dead. You see how I don’t have to care in this situation?”

Kyle gritted his teeth and forced out, “Cartman, will you please kill the one of us that you _know_ isn’t real?”

The other Kyle snorted. “Since when would I say ‘please’? Get it over with so we can go figure out what the fuck is happening, okay? Do you even care that there’s another _Cartman_ running around?”

“Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I’m in one of these stand-offs,” Kyle groaned. “Could we be even more of a cliché?”

His double smirked at him. “That sounds a lot more like Stan than Kyle, right, Cartman? He can’t even remember who he’s pretending to be!”

“Of course I sound like Stan! Stan is my best friend!”

“Don’t listen to him, Cartman. He’s a lying Jewrat, remember?”

Both Kyle and Cartman looked at the other Kyle at the same time. Cartman didn’t risk moving his gun away from Kyle, but he was noticeably turned off. “What does that have to do with anything?”

The other Kyle’s eyes widened like he was catching some big mistake. “Because… you said… he’s a stupid Jew…”

“I highly doubt I’d hang out with Kyle if he were Jewish,” Cartman said with a snort.

Kyle raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I’d hang out with _you_ if I were Jewish.” The ginger jokes were more than enough.

The other Kyle looked cornered, opening and closing his mouth a few times. “Our last name is _Broflovski_ ,” he said beseechingly. “Look at his nose!”

“Hey, now,” Cartman said, moving the gun back to the other Kyle without thinking. “Just because my friend has an ugly mug doesn’t mean he’s a Goddamn Jew.” He surveyed him very carefully. “If you are a Jew, you’re legally required to tell me.”

Kyle didn’t think that was true, but he really didn’t have a big impression of Judaism besides the shit Cartman said. He just assumed that the opposite of whatever Cartman said was always true.

The other Kyle’s face hardened. “Then kill him ‘cause he sucks?”

Kyle couldn’t believe his life was very directly in danger, and he couldn’t feel anything other than annoyed. He let out a wordless scream of frustration and spread his arms open wide like an easy target. “Let’s watch you live with the knowledge that _you weren’t able to shoot me_ ,” Kyle growled, perhaps a bit too confidently. “I know you hate when your conscience exists.”

Cartman fidgeted nervously, holding Kyle’s glare for a long time. He started to drop his arm, and the other Kyle burst out, “Just do it, baby.”

Both Kyle and Cartman’s eyes immediately widened in horror, and Kyle didn’t even have time to react before there was a loud bang, and the other Kyle slumped to the ground. They both stared at the body as the shock sank in, and Cartman said, without looking at him, “I will kill you if you call me that again.”

“Again?” Kyle echoed. “That wasn’t me, dude!”

“I know you’ve always been super jelly of me and Heidi, but that’s something you’ve gotta keep to yourself. Your gay overtures are making us all really uncomfortable, Kyle.”

“Overtones,” Kyle corrected dully as he bent over to retrieve the discarded gun. “Let’s just pretend he never said that and go find Stan.”

They walked through the forest silently. Kyle was mulling over the presence of the intruder – why did it have to be _his_ replica? – when Cartman said thoughtfully, “I bet I could have gotten him to suck my balls if I’d kept him.”

“You’re making me and Heidi really uncomfortable,” Kyle mimicked sarcastically.

The walk seemed to take a lot longer than it logically should have. Kyle was never this quiet around Cartman. They couldn’t be in the same room without aggressively bickering. Cartman was clearly deeply moved by this fairly innocuous word.

No, his reaction was fair, Kyle decided. Kyle would kill a thousand doppelgängers to make sure none of them had pet names for Cartman.

“Hey,” Cartman said. “Hey, Kyle.”

“What, Cartman?”

“Guess what?”

Kyle rolled his eyes and immediately regretted it when he stumbled over a root. “Just tell me,” he said.

Cartman lifted his leg, and Kyle didn’t realize what was happening till there was the loud rip of what could only be a Cartman-fart, and Cartman roared with laughter. “How do you like that for a gas chamber, Jew?”

“I’m _not_ Jewish,” Kyle spat. “There’s nothing _wrong_ with being Jewish. It’s just not what I am.”

“It does explain your last name,” Cartman said. “I always had a fear.”

“Can you just shut up until we find Stan?” Kyle asked tiredly. “You are not doing anything to make this situation any better. Stan and I might deal with it better on our own.”

Cartman scoffed. “There is a version of me out there who _might_ be gay for you, Kyle.” He paused to let this sink in. “It’s more likely that your sad self was obsessed with me, but the other Eric _might_ be gay. I think you know what I need to do.”

Kyle had been prepared to respond, but he was taken off-guard. “Do you think of yourself as ‘Eric’?”

“It is my name.”

“Barely.”

They continued to walk far longer than Kyle thought would be necessary until Cartman grumbled, “Why can’t there just be fucking phone signal? I bet Stan _likes_ walks in the forest.”

Stan did like walks in the forest, but that was supremely unimportant.

Kyle stopped in his tracks, digging around in his pocket until he found his phone. He checked it, and his suspicion proved correct. “Why the fuck did we just _assume_ there was no cell signal?” He wanted to smack himself, then Cartman, in the forehead.

“’Cause we’re in fucking nature. That’s not very realistic.”

Kyle didn’t look up as he scrolled through his contacts for Stan’s card; he half-heartedly mumbled, “It’s real so, y’know,” and held the phone up to his ear.

It rang for a very long time; Kyle hadn’t even stopped to wonder if there would be signal on Stan’s end. Right before Kyle gave up and hung up the phone, the line was picked up. Kyle could only hear rustling and some voices chattering indistinctly for long enough that he assumed Stan had butt answered him, then Stan said, “Hello?”

“Why do you always answer the phone like the screen doesn’t say who’s calling?” Kyle asked, grinning a little on his end.

Cartman nudged him. “Is that Stan on the line? Tell him I say ‘hi!’”

Kyle gave him a weird look. “No, I’m not going to do that. Dude, Stan, something really weird’s happening.”

There was the sound of rustling and chattering again, then Wendy asked, “Does it have something to do with a skinny Eric Cartman impersonator?”

“Yes,” Kyle said automatically. “Skinny?”

“He’s sort of hot, Kyle,” Wendy whispered urgently, probably so Stan couldn’t hear. “All those years of Cartman saying he was handsome under all that fat! I feel so uncomfortable and conflicted. He hasn’t even said anything horrible!”

“Did he try to kill you?”

Cartman looked interested and nudged Kyle expectantly. “Which one did they get?” He sounded like they were finding out the toys in their happy meals.

Kyle pointed at Cartman then flipped him off without taking the phone away from his ear. He lost track of Wendy’s explanation as to why Cartman trying to kill them didn’t stop him from being more pleasant than usual while he swatted away Cartman’s barrage of nudges, tuning back in for her to finish, “his voice isn’t even fat anymore!”

Kyle grinned, because ‘fat’ was the only word that could describe what Cartman’s voice sounded like. They had all sat around without him and discussed it at length; it was the only answer.

“I wanna hear about me, Jew!” Cartman whined.

He mouthed ‘fuck you’ very clearly and said aloud, “Where are you and Stan?”

“There are some trees around me,” Wendy said vaguely. “I just licked my finger, and the wind is blowing on the pad of my finger instead of my nail.”

“Wendy, what?” Kyle asked, running through her directions in his head again. “I don’t know which way your finger is oriented.”

“Imagine that I just said ‘Eureka!’”

Kyle wanted to say something rude and disparaging, but somehow Wendy Testaburger could make the worst directions of all time comprehensible. Kyle licked his finger and held it in front of him to test the air. “Should I actually follow the wind?”

Cartman roared with laughter. “Sacagawea is here to save the day!”

Again, Kyle mouthed, ‘Fuck. You.’

There was the sound of fighting over the phone, and Stan said, “Kyle, we’re like fifty feet from the waterfall. It’s – _Wendy, we had the perfect landmark, and you were talking about fucking ‘eureka!’ –_ kinda north of where we – _it’s not sexism if you’re actually bad at directions, dude –_ where we entered. Look, I gotta go. My girlfriend thinks Eric Cartman likes women more than I do.”

“I think he likes dudes,” was all Kyle had time to say before Stan hung up the phone.

Cartman glared at him. “He doesn’t. Like. Dudes.”

“He gave Kyle his gun,” Kyle argued reasonably, trying not to feel like he was talking about himself in third person.

“He probably stole it,” Cartman muttered. Kyle really didn’t want to push the subject. Cartman was, apparently, okay with constantly demanding Kyle suck his balls, but genuine affection was ten steps too far. Kyle was inclined to agree.

It wasn’t long before they could hear the roar of water pounding on rock, and a few minutes later, the trees thinned into a clearing. Stan was standing in the middle of it with his foot on somebody’s chest while Wendy fussed over her iPhone.

“Try googling ‘Ditto,’” Stan was saying.

“It isn’t a Pokemon,” Wendy snapped. More softly, she added, “Plus, he’s not an exact copy.”

“So it isn’t Ditto?”

“No, that seems unlikely.”

“Dude,” Kyle called, striding quickly into the clearing. Cartman was already craning his neck to get a look at the figure under Stan’s foot. “Are you trying to figure out what they are?”

Instead of a response, Stan gave a startled yelp and stumbled off the person that Kyle could only assume was skinny Cartman. “He fucking bucked me!” The other Cartman made a movement like he was trying to stand, and Stan kicked him in the stomach. Cartman, next to Kyle, winced.

Kyle closed the distance between him and Stan, squatting down so he could look the new Cartman in the eye. He looked simultaneously hopeful and horrified at the sight of Kyle. There was no risk of mistaking one Cartman for the other, but he didn’t seem to be connecting which Kyle would be peacefully accompanying three other people from this universe. Cartman always was a dumb shit.

“They didn’t kill you,” he breathed hopefully. Kyle felt unbelievably greasy under the disturbingly loving gaze. If this was how his Cartman felt about the other Kyle, he understood why he’d acted so quickly.

“No, we did,” Cartman called from behind Kyle. Kyle looked back to see a pair of legs at his eye level and frowned up at Cartman. “Shame on you. You look totally killer, though.”

Kyle could safely say that he saw at least five emotions he’d never seen on Eric Cartman’s face before, the predominant being selfless terror and heartbreak. He was on the verge of tears when Cartman snapped, “No, Eric, that’s a bad Eric!” and kicked at the other Cartman’s head lightly. He repeated himself a few more times, voice growing progressively higher. Stan was looking down at the other Cartman like he was beginning to sympathize.

Stan looked over at Kyle and grinned. “We’ve faced this choice before. Which Cartman should we keep?”

Wendy widened her eyes urgently and jerked her head towards the new Cartman. Kyle gave her an apologetic smile. “Kill the spare,” he ordered, wincing as he remembered that his super blasé command was actually a quote from _Harry Potter_. He really thought he’d sounded cool for a second.

Stan clapped his hands like he was playing a game of catch, and Kyle tossed him the gun. Wendy gasped, but it reached Stan with all parties in one piece. Stan balanced it in his hand approvingly before looking back to Kyle. “Sure you don’t wanna do it? It could be cathartic.”

“I might get addicted,” Kyle said honestly.

Stan prepared to shoot, but he looked back another time. “Are we _sure_ we shouldn’t be keeping him around for questions or – “

“Oh, fucking move,” Cartman snapped, holding up his own gun. “This fucker put _my_ mouth somewhere on _Kyle’s_ body.”

“I didn’t _rape_ you,” the other Cartman sneered. “If you weren’t so clearly repressing – “

“I get hard for Heidi!” Cartman snapped, and Kyle was torn between the urge to laugh hysterically and vomit his guts out. One look at Stan and Wendy suggested they were feeling about the same.

Cartman’s finger twitched, and, without thinking, Kyle moved between the two of them. “Back off, Cartman. We’re going to interrogate him like Stan said.”

“Sure. Rescue your butt buddy, Kyle. But don’t use _my_ mouth for _your_ sick fantasies.”

“What about the one where I feed you to death like the guy from _Se7en_ ,” Kyle muttered, turning back to drop down next to the new Cartman. He smiled at Kyle like he knew him, and Kyle returned what felt like a smile but looked more like a pained grimace. “Alright, Stan. Interrogate him.”

Stan rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly bashful. “Who’s gonna be the bad cop?”

“I’m _obviously_ the bad cop,” Cartman said just as Wendy responded, “Me, of course.”

“Wendy gets the job,” Stan said without a second thought.

“I’ll be the bad cop whether you want me to be or not!” Cartman warned. He kicked the other Cartman, and Stan lurched like he was about to stumble off again. “Tell me where Kyle hid the Jew gold, asshole!”

The other Cartman reached out to him. “It is real, Eric. I saw it.”

“I _know_ it’s real. I’m asking you the location in which it is currently being real!” Cartman shrieked, words growing faster and more high-pitched. It was the unmistakable being of a temper tantrum.

Cartman’s first wail caught dead in his throat at the sound of leaves crunching under two sets of boots. He and Kyle had their guns out and trained on the direction the noise was coming from, exchanging a grim nod before turning back to the intruders. If there were more South Park doppelgängers showing up, they’d have to act fast and wouldn’t be able to interrogate the new Cartman before killing him. Kyle wasn’t even sure that killing these impostors was the best way of dealing with them, but it seemed like it was a situation of kill or be killed. Kyle would rather kill.

From the trees emerged Kenny and Butters. Butters had on his usual gold chains and handful of flashy rings, and Kenny wore a long blonde wig and gigantic neon orange fur coat. There was nothing out of the ordinary today.

“Hey fellas,” Butters greeted cheerfully. Kyle had expected his Berenstain Bears attitude to fade with age and experience, but somehow Butters managed wholesome goodness even as he accepted thousands of dollars for a night with one of his whores. Unbelievable, really. “You guys should really come back to the waterfall. We think Kevin’s gonna give his last words soon.”

Cartman snickered a little, and Kyle gave him a questioning look. In explanation, he said, “I guess the force wasn’t with him in the end?” and burst out laughing.

Wendy frowned at Cartman judgmentally. “This is _your_ fault!”

“I didn’t tell him to jump,” Cartman said without remorse. “We have better shit to care about anyway.”

“There’s signal,” Kyle said reasonably. “Has anyone called 911?”

Butters gasped and reached into his pocket for his phone. He held it up in the air like that would really help him get more bars and said, “Well, would ya look at that!” He punched the three digits in. He touched Kenny’s shoulder briefly and smiled. “I’m going back to the waterfall, Ken. You gonna stay here?”

Kenny looked back at the group, his gaze settling on the slim Cartman without any apparent surprise, and nodded. Butters gave him a kiss on the cheek and bounded off through the woods, and Kenny approached the supine figure.

Cartman looked around the group for support. “None of us really give a shit about Kevin, right?”

Wendy and Stan murmured weak dissent, and Kyle gave Cartman a look of pure disgust but remained silent. Cartman shrugged and aimed back at his clone. “Alright, let’s get this one out of the way before any of his friends come to save him.”

“Who would come to save you?” Wendy blurted out before looking a little guilty.

Stan, the main proponent of interrogating the doppelgänger, looked increasingly nervous since the arrival of Butters and Kenny like he was only just realizing how many people they might be dealing with here. He didn’t object, and Cartman gave a nod of victory before Kenny stepped calmly in front of the look-alike.

He held up a hand to stop him, and Cartman dropped his arm with a small whine. Kenny waved Stan off and extended a hand to help the other Cartman to his feet. He brushed himself off and scanned the group with a calculating look like he couldn’t quite figure out how to get out of this situation alive. His eyes settled on Kenny, and he asked, “Kenny McCormick?”, with a doubtful expression on his face.

Kenny inclined his head a little in confirmation, and the other Cartman burst out in a fit of raucous laughter before the severity of the situation set in.

“Sorry. You’re _very_ different where I come from.”

Kenny smiled and shrugged a shoulder. Kyle was impressed by how unfazed he seemed by this whole situation.

Cartman wrinkled his nose. “Did you guys all hear him apologize?”

“Welcome to the gang, new Cartman,” Stan replied seamlessly. He pulled the impostor in for a bro hug like he hadn’t had his foot on his chest a few seconds ago.

The other Cartman was still shaking his head slightly, staring at Kenny in amazement. “ _So_ different,” he repeated.

“He’s probably checking you out, Kenny,” Cartman said, and Kenny winked.

Kyle cleared his throat, immediately catching the new Cartman’s attention. The others all made faces like they always did when Kyle tried to take the lead, but he didn’t care much. “We need to figure out what to ask him.” He pointed the gun, and the replica looked crushed. “Are there more of you?”

He nodded.

“How many?” Stan called out.

The other Cartman counted on his fingers before answering, “Too many for you assholes to win.”

“Hey, butt pirate, we’ve already killed Kyle,” Cartman said. “We’re winning.”

He bit his bottom lip, tears welling up in his eyes again. Kyle fought the urge to laugh at him; it seemed mean to be cruel to Cartman when he was acting like this. There was no fucking way they’d keep a Cartman around who had touched _any_ part of Kyle’s body, but he had to be nice to him while he was alive.

“Why are you coming here?” Stan asked.

“You better speak up, or I’m going to have you munching dirt for breakfast!”

Stan looked askance, and Wendy explained, “Am I not bad cop?”

“I told you guys to let me do it,” Cartman grumbled.

“He’ll talk to Kyle,” Kenny said confidently.

Something about the scarcity with which Kenny spoke made his words carry great weight. Stan, Wendy, and Cartman immediately stopped bickering to look at Kyle expectantly.

“You’re not my Kyle,” the other Cartman spat. “I don’t give a _shit_ about you.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d give a shit about someone who looked just like Wendy,” Stan said from the sidelines. Wendy shushed him, and he quieted down.

Kyle took a step forward. He gave Cartman a pained look because only Cartman could understand how repulsive this situation was, and he returned a look of empathetic horror. Very slowly, Kyle reached out to put a hand on the other Cartman’s shoulder. There. That was as far as he was willing to go. “If you know something, you need to tell me, Car- Eric,” Kyle said with some difficulty. “They’re going to kill me too.”

“I don’t really _care_ if they kill you,” he hissed. “You. Aren’t. Kyle.”

“I _am_ Kyle,” he insisted. “I could be, um, fuck, I could be everything that Kyle was! You just can’t let them kill me, Eric.”

Cartman made a noise like he was dying in the back of his throat, and Kyle didn’t dare look at Stan or Kenny’s face. This situation was horrible enough.

It seemed to be working. The clone was looking at him, searching for signs of his Kyle, and Kyle tried to muster up a winning smile. His face crumpled in defeat, and he nodded. “I’ll take you to where we came from.”

Stan clapped his hands, walking over to the two of them. “Alright, let’s get going!”

“No, not you,” the other Cartman said firmly. He pointed at Kyle, Kenny, and Wendy. “These ones.”

“I’m not letting you take my girlfriend without me,” Stan said.

Wendy rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to be protected! Let’s just do what he wants.”

“Yeah, Stan,” Cartman added. “She has a twink and a Jew to protect her. What could be safer?”

Stan pointed at Kyle and mouthed ‘Jew?’, and Kyle waved a hand for him to forget about it.

Stan walked up to the Cartman replica and poked him hard in the chest. “If anything happens to her, I’ll crush you.”

“That’s very gallant,” the other Cartman said disinterestedly. “You assholes ready to go?”

Wendy motioned for him to lead the way, and Kyle looked over his shoulder as a very worried Stan and Cartman disappeared from view. Before they were out of earshot, Cartman yelled, “if you sleep with me, I’ll rip your dick off, Kyle!”

Kenny snickered wickedly, burying his nose in the shoulder of his fur coat.

They walked through the forest for a long time. Wendy seemed intrigued by asking this Cartman every detail about his life. It was like she was talking to a toddler; she was absolutely awed by everything he said. When they had a similar experience, she would breathe, “did you guys hear that? Fancy that!” and, when they didn’t, she would analyze every twist that might have made things occur differently. Kyle was pretty fucking sick of hearing about this fairly tame alternate universe when they reached the south edge of the forest.

He had been expecting a portal, but they just stepped out into a wide, snowy expanse. Resting by the only log was the weirdest duo Kyle had ever seen. One of them, standing up in front of the sitting figure, was a Goliath, towering over Kyle by two heads and being generally terrifying. His companion looked like he would come up to the monster’s waist when standing; he was like a little fairy with elf-like features and hair in wild disarray. Kenny sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes traveling slowly up past the giant’s face to his blue chullo hat.

“Well,” said Kyle. “We were set up.”

The behemoth looked down, narrowing his eyes like Kyle was too close to the ground for him to see. He cast an appraising look at Cartman, who held his hands up innocently. “I had to phone a friend.”

His pixie sidekick, whom Kyle recognized now as a miniature Tweek Tweak, pointed at Kenny with a shaky hand. “That’s not the real Kenny!”

“I don’t think any of these are real,” Craig said in a bored monotone. “Except fucking Cartman. Are you really the last one alive?”

“Well, Craig,” Cartman said angrily. “Maybe we could have used a fucking ogre out in the field! What fucking use were you here?”

Craig gestured at Tweek. “We’re both fine.”

“They killed Kyle!”

“And what do you want me to do about that?” Craig asked impatiently.

Cartman gaped at him. “Kill these buttholes!”

Craig yawned and nodded. He extended his hand to Tweek, and Tweek handed him a club that looked like it really would belong to an ogre. Before he had the chance to turn to Kyle, Kyle fired a shot through his shoulder. He, Wendy, and Kenny collectively held their breath as Craig looked down with a small frown to examine the wound. He twisted his shoulder a few times and shifted the weight of his club to the other arm.

“You guys are fee fi fo fucked,” Cartman said seriously.

Kyle shot again, and Craig seemed unfazed. Was he _actually_ the Hulk? Who the fuck made Craig into the Hulk? With a sweep of a giant hand, Kyle was thrown off his feet and into a tree where he slumped on the ground. Wendy raced to where the gun had skidded across the ground, and Tweek jumped on her back, pulling her hair and scratching at her eyes.

Craig turned to Kenny, and it was like watching a battle of who could care less. Kenny shifted from foot-to-foot as Craig lumbered closer and ducked right as he took a swing with the club. Cartman tried to grab Kenny from behind, and Kyle, at a loss for ways to help, burst into loud, fake tears.

They did the job. Cartman froze where he stood, listening to the sobs like they were physically painful for him. Kenny flashed Kyle a quick smile and took the opportunity to elbow Cartman in the gut and dart out of Craig’s reach.

He helped Kyle up with one hand just in time to shove him out of the way of another swing.

Wendy shrieked and threw herself forward like she was going to do a forward roll. Tweek tumbled over her and landed on his back, and, with a yell that Kyle never expected from Wendy Testaburger, she stomped into his skull. It didn’t work as well as it did in the movies, and Tweek was rolling around screaming as she stomped repeatedly.

Tweek had already stopped moving by the time Craig had Wendy by the arm, flinging her ten feet through the air. Wendy pushed herself up immediately, looking a bit concerned when she wiped her mouth and found a trickle of blood.

“How the fuck do you kill a giant?” she asked shrilly, Craig already back to his attack on Kenny. Despite seeing Tweek die in this very way, Kenny was clinging to Craig’s back with his arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders while Craig tried to buck him off.

“Long range weapons,” Kyle answered automatically. “Higher ground.”

Cartman roared with laughter. “This isn’t Skyrim, you fucking nerd.”

“Blind him and strap yourself to the belly of a sheep,” Kyle said again, mostly joking this time. Kenny had deflected most of the attention anyway.

“Nobody would actually do that!” Wendy shrieked.

Kyle gave her a winning smile, but he didn’t think it had been a purposeful joke. It was good nonetheless.

Kenny looked at Kyle for a second with time he didn’t have to spare and, wrinkling his nose, dug a finger into one of Craig’s eye sockets. Craig roared, and Kenny gouged out the second socket before dropping to the ground and running out of reach.

Kyle ran for the gun immediately, fixing it on the impostor Cartman who gave a weak “his sense of smell is better than ever!” before a bullet shot through his chest, and he collapsed. Kyle took a deep, satisfied breath, wondering if he’d ever jack off to this memory at some point in his life. He sort of wanted to keep Cartman as far as possible out of his fantasies.

Wendy and Kenny were struggling to stay out of Craig’s clumsy path. He staggered towards Kyle, and Kyle wasted a few more shots. Kenny shrugged off his fur coat and left it delicately on the ground before barreling into Craig like this was a game of football and knocking him to his side. He extended a hand wordlessly, and Kyle threw him the gun. They really hadn’t learned the first lesson of gun safety (unless the first lesson was “don’t die,” in which case they had it down).

Kenny fired a shot directly into his heart with aim Kyle didn’t know Kenny possessed and tossed the gun back to Kyle. Kenny looked around the destruction happily and said, “Phew!” He grabbed his jacket and put it back on.

Wendy gave Kyle a shell-shocked look, and he nodded before they followed Kenny out of the clearing. She and Kenny stopped to frisk Craig and Tweek’s corpses for weapons but came up empty; Kyle was pretty sure he saw Kenny tuck something away in his bag, but he just shook his head when Kyle asked if he’d come up with anything. Wendy cast a longing glance at the club, but Kyle explained that it wasn’t a practical weapon for anyone who wasn’t a monstrous version of Craig.

“Did anyone notice,” Wendy began as they neared the clearing they’d left Stan and Cartman in, “that they were more… monsters than doppelgängers?”

“You mean do I think that Craig files his nails?” Kyle asked sarcastically.

“Kyle, he was like a billion feet high!”

“Eight,” Kenny said.

She chewed her bottom lip worriedly. “I just think this might be way worse than we’re giving it credit for. Yeah, it’s weird that Cartman was in love with you, but Craig was literally the Cyclops from _The Odyssey_.”

“So you did that reference on purpose?” Kyle asked. “It was good.”

“I don’t make jokes as we face certain death,” Wendy said coldly. “Even if Kenny seemed to find them helpful.”

Kenny held up a finger, and Wendy fell silent. They listened for a few seconds to the clear sound of voices up ahead, and Kenny broke into a run. By the time Kyle got to the clearing, Kenny had his arms around Butters in a tight hug, and Butters was stroking his wig calmingly.

Stan and Cartman were both sitting against trees, and Stan jumped to his feet at the sight of Wendy. He still didn’t do amazingly well with PDA, and they gave each other a brisk high five of victory.

“I knew it would be a trap,” Stan was saying passionately. “Cartman would never help anyone!”

“There were copies of Craig and Tweek, too,” Kyle reported. “They’re dead now.”

“Craig was _scary_ ,” Wendy said in a hushed voice. “If there are more like that, I really think we’re all going to die.”

Butters gave a muffled sob and buried his face in Kenny’s neck, and Kenny glared at Wendy like she had personally threatened his boyfriend.

“You know what this means?” Stan asked loudly, effectively claiming the attention of everyone in the clearing. “There has to be one of everyone. Kyle, Cartman, Tweek, Craig.” He paused and added (unnecessarily), “Maybe it’s just the gay ones?”

“Let’s say it’s everyone,” Kyle said, irritated.

“How many people is ‘everyone?’” Wendy asked, eyes shadowed by fear.

Stan pulled out his phone. “Enough that we need reinforcements.”

“All your friends are standing here,” Cartman said.

Wendy raised a hand and said, “I can call Bebe.”

Cartman sniffed. “Then I’ll get Heidi. She’s way smarter than all you guys anyway.”

“Think, you guys,” Stan stressed. “If we found _copies_ of Tweek and Craig, who do you think we should contact right now?”

“Well, Chef is dead,” Cartman said.

“Jesus Christ! Craig, you guys! We need to fucking call Craig!”

Kenny frowned at Butters with what Butters called his restless bitch face, and Butters patted his arm. “Craig’s been real good about not making fun of the coat lately! It won’t be so bad. His dad’s a swell guy – one of my best customers!”

“I _like_ the coat,” Wendy said supportively. “Bebe does, too.”

“Heidi doesn’t,” Cartman said.

Stan looked to Kyle to take control of the situation, and Kyle pulled out his phone without waiting permission. After a few rings, a familiar nasally voice answered the phone.

“Who gave you my number?”

Kyle closed his eyes for a long time, reminding himself of all the reasons he had to care about this situation. It was a ritual he had to do fairly often during these stupid adventures. “You must have my number if you answer the phone that way.”

“Fair point,” Craig sniffed. “Why are you bothering me?”

“It’s a little hard to explain over the phone.”

“Yes, it always is, isn’t it?” Craig asked in a tired voice. “Try.”

“An ogre who looks just like you is dead. Also some forest sprite who looks like Tweek. Both dead.”

There was a long silence on the other end, and Kyle pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure the call hadn’t been dropped. “Well, it’s dead.”

“There will be more,” Kyle said. “Cartman and I had them, too.”

“Then kill those ones, too.” Craig hung up the phone.

Kyle cursed loudly. “That fucking guy!”

“No luck?” Wendy asked sympathetically. “Want me to try?”

“He’ll be useless no matter who you are,” Kyle grunted.

Wendy smiled benignly and pulled out her phone. After a pause, she said, “Hi, Token! … Good, yeah, how are you? Good hike? … I’m so glad he’s okay! That was so irresponsible. … So I’m actually calling with an ulterior motive. … Oh, you heard Craig’s call?” Kyle was fairly impressed as he listened to Wendy eloquently sum up everything they had seen that day. When she stopped talking, there was a long break like Token was going wild on the other end, and Wendy said, “Okay, your backyard in two hours? Bring your friends. … Bye, Token! See you soon!”

She hung up the phone, a proud look on her face. “Token’s backyard in two hours. His people will be there.”

It was an anticlimactic reunion as Kyle had forgotten they would have to take the bus back from the school field trip. Craig and his friends were sitting at the front of the bus, taking up many more than their allotted five seats. They didn’t offer to have them join the group; Token smiled and waved, and Clyde jerked his chin up in a less-than-organic bro nod, but otherwise they were ignored. They found their way to their usual spots in the back of the bus, Heidi and Bebe joining them after they’d sat down. Once again, Wendy did an admirable job of explaining the situation to them. By the time she had finished, Heidi looked positively terrified, and Bebe was squinting at Wendy like she didn’t trust that Wendy wasn’t one of the clones.

Craig and those guys had never been exactly stoked to participate in their adventures, but Kyle thought it was a little cruel to take Token’s car back to his house and leave the others to walk. It was hard to do anything other than pour over what had happened again and again until Bebe and Heidi might as well have been there. Kyle described Wendy destroying Tweek for the third time, and Bebe gave Wendy another look of respect and fear.

Wendy kept her eyes on the ground as he spoke, smiling faintly in response to the group’s compliments. Her smile got more and more strained until she asked, “Do you think we’re going to have to kill a lot of people?”

“We better,” Cartman grunted. “Killing Kyle was easily one of the best experiences of my life.”

“I killed you, too, Fatass!”

Heidi put a hand on Cartman’s arm to keep him from engaging, and he threw Kyle a dirty look.

“To answer your question,” Stan said loudly. “Yes, I think we’re probably going to end up killing lots and lots of people. Who look like us and our closest friends.”

“Some aren’t my friends,” Kyle said, thinking of the Colossus Craig.

“Why are you guys so sure there are more?” Bebe asked. “If anything, there should be one for each of us.”

“No, Stan’s right,” Cartman said. “It just feels like killing time, you know?”

Wendy glared at him warningly. “Have _you_ ever killed someone?”

Kyle and Stan chuckled, and Cartman smirked. “Indirectly, I’ve killed more people than the Nazis.”

“Dude, not cool,” Kyle said. “That might be my people you’re talking about.”

Cartman looked at him seriously. “Kyle, if you end up being Jewish, I’m going to kick your ass.”

“ _Ooh,_ I’m scared,” he said, wiggling his fingers spookily. “I have won and will continue to win every fight we have.”

“Eric, baby, you’re being insensitive,” Heidi said innocently, and Cartman blinked at her like he’d forgotten she was there.

“Heidi, you _know_ Cartman’s killed people?” Bebe asked in amazement. “And you guys are, like, still dating?”

“He thought he was doing it for the good of humanity,” Heidi said like this explained all his crimes. “He just had to become passionate about the right things! Anyway, I’ve killed someone too.” At Bebe’s shocked look, she explained hurriedly, “Not on purpose! I hit an old guy with my bike when I was seven. I don’t bike anymore.” She looked about half as remorseful as Kyle would have expected, and he wondered if that was Cartman’s influence on her.

“I stomped someone’s head in!” Wendy shouted over them. “Can we talk about something _important_?”

“Kenny dug his fingers into someone’s eye sockets,” Kyle said dispassionately. “I shot one of my closest friends.”

“You hate that close friend,” Stan said accusingly, wrapping an arm around Wendy like an awkward preteen boy. Kyle wondered sometimes if they were as awkward physically in their private life as in their public one. He had to believe for Stan’s sake that they weren’t.

Wendy punched at the air powerlessly; it seemed like most people were going to have a tantrum before this was over. “I don’t want to kill any more people!”

Stan gave her a singular pat. “I’ll kill them for you, Wen.”

“No way, ho,” Cartman said in a business-like manner. “You’re way too vicious to be on the sidelines for this. You’re twice as valuable as your pussy boyfriend.”

Wendy touched her heart like she was honored.

“We’re all going to kill a lot of people,” Kyle snapped finally. “We should get over the idea of it now because it seems like it’s going to happen no matter what.”

“Bebe’s right,” Wendy protested. “We don’t know that there’s more than these ones we’ve been fighting already.”

“The other Kyle said some stuff that made me think I wasn’t the first Kyle he’d seen,” Kyle admitted, still unsure of what name and pronoun to be using. Now he understood what it felt like to be – _don’t think it; people don’t laugh at jokes about transgender people_ , Kyle caught himself thinking.

The group exchanged a round of disbelieving looks before Kyle found himself on the receiving end of eight glares. It was Wendy who finally voiced, “You didn’t think to tell us that an hour ago?”

Jesus, how far away was Token’s house?

Kyle didn’t know why he hadn’t told them the whole story; it had surely been more important than the other Kyle’s tryst with his Cartman, which Stan had questioned him about for a solid twenty minutes on the bus to school. Heidi seemed exceptionally unthreatened as she teased the two of them mercilessly.

“He called me stupid,” Kyle said defensively. “Do you think all the other Kyles are smarter than me?”

“Doesn’t matter if they’re more Jewish than you,” Cartman said encouragingly. “Now, if any of them aren’t gingers, you should be threatened.”

“Maybe we’ll find another nice and thin Cartman to keep,” Kyle shot back.

Cartman pointed at him accusingly. “I knew you wanted him, you abomination of – “

“Woah,” Kenny said, holding up a hand.

“Homosexuality is a natural instinct. Why, I got fellas who’ve been married to women for thirty years and want to sample a man on the side, and I think that’s o-kay!” Butters said lightly. Kyle had almost forgotten the two of them were there.

“Yeah, Butters, because one is your dad,” Cartman said harshly.

Butters didn’t seem ashamed. “No, he prefers the bathhouses. Some of the fellas are people he referred to me!”

“Ew,” Wendy said quietly. Some people had adjusted to Butters’ job. Many hadn’t.

Bebe turned left at a fork in the road and slowed down in front of a mansion with sprawling grounds and a garage the size of Kyle’s house. She pressed a button by the gate and waited for a buzzing noise to push it open.

It looked a little like they had posed in various stages of nonchalance to impress upon them how little they cared. Craig was reclining on a chaise lounge with enormous sunglasses on; Kenny and Craig hated each other’s style, and Kyle couldn’t figure out why. They both spent way too much time and money on how they looked, and they both tended to wear feminine clothing without thinking about it. Craig clung to his hat like Kenny clung to his coat. There was really no discernable difference.

Tweek was on the opposite chair, sitting cross-legged with a copy of _Vogue_ on his lap. He was reading articles aloud for Craig without showing him the pictures; was there a point in that at all? Kyle genuinely didn’t know. He could hear Tweek saying, “And the picture is of one of those ugly skirts that’s like short in the front and long in the back? You know, the – “ Tweek paused to shudder violently, “ – ones that make calves look like stumps?”

“Mullet skirt,” Craig supplied. “Or high-low. _Please_ don’t tell me those are back.”

“I think they might be!”

Craig sighed like he had suffered enough for a lifetime and said, “Keep reading.”

Token and Clyde had stopped a game of basketball when the group arrived, and Jimmy was still scribbling furiously in a notebook. Kyle cleared his throat loudly, and Craig pulled his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose to examine Kyle and Stan.

“You guys can’t actually not care that clones of us are running around,” Stan said angrily. “They’re literally trying to kill us!”

“Right now I’m more concerned that 2012 is back,” Craig said in a bored voice.

“Oh, my God!” Tweek gasped. “Do you think that’s actually what’s happening?”

“What? No. They were our age,” Stan answered. “I don’t think Craig aged out of being a monster.”

“He means explain the return of these hideous skirts,” Craig said.

“I own one of those,” Heidi whispered, and Bebe mouthed, ‘me, too.’

“Wendy, the rest of us want to hear what _you_ have to say,” Token interrupted charmingly in that voice Kyle thought was a little too deep for a teenager to deserve. “Craig and Tweek are just panicking the only way their housewife selves know how.”

“ _Housewife_?” Craig echoed, revolted.

Clyde smiled down at his boots and said, “Tweek knows plenty of ways to panic,” before giggling childishly. Token bit back a smile and gave him a conciliatory nod.

“Craig d-does tend to cuh _-cuh-cum_ -communicate his feelings through fah-fashion,” Jimmy said in agreement. Kyle couldn’t believe that the douchiest boys in school (in his humble opinion) were still willing to hang out with Jimmy Valmer, but the kid had been there since the beginning. It made no fucking sense.

On the subject of Craig’s old friends, Kyle still thought people should be a bit more worried about what was happening to Kevin.

“I don’t do that,” Craig said, as vicious as one could be without breaking monotony.

“Wuh-what about Stripe’s death, pal?” Jimmy prompted.

Craig’s eyes narrowed. “The newspaper in his cage was showing advertisements for peplum. _Peplum!_ He deserves better than that for his dying days. Doesn’t mean I didn’t deal with my fucking feelings.” He readjusted the chair so he could sit straight up and crossed his arms in annoyance. “Alright. You’ve forced my hand. Let’s talk about these immigrants or whatever.” He shot Tweek an exasperated look, expecting Tweek to join him in giving no shits, but Tweek just twitched violently.

“’Immigrants,’” Cartman repeated like he was testing out the word. “Well, now I _know_ we’re doing the right thing.”

“Killing them in cold blood?” Kyle asked.

Wendy smirked. “I would guess killing Kyle got his blood hot.”

Heidi rubbed Cartman’s arm soothingly like she knew how much shit his friends put him through and was completely sympathetic. “Eric’s just trying to figure out what we should do, you guys! He does his best work when people aren’t being mean to him.”

Cartman gave Kyle a smug smile and flipped him off, hand still at his waist so Heidi wouldn’t notice. Kyle exhaled in irritation and turned back to Wendy. “You’re clearly the only person here people will listen to. Do you thing, Madame President.”

She curtsied, and Kyle couldn’t resist a smile. He couldn’t deny that Wendy was the best at everything – including being the best at everything. Other than directions, he supposed. That shortcoming must have driven her crazy. “Okay, well, I suppose the first thing we should do should be to compile all the information we have. Who here has _seen_ one of these doppelgängers?”

“Let’s call them immigrants,” Cartman said. “I feel less guilty about killing them.”

“Did you _ever_ feel guilty about killing them?” Kyle asked snidely. Heidi gave Cartman another calming touch.

Wendy stomped her foot. “No side conversations!”

“Why does Wendy get to lead the meeting?” Craig asked, probably for no reason than to make this be as long and agonizing for everyone as possible. “I didn’t choose her to be president.”

“Who else, Craig?” Stan snapped. “Kyle’s the one who knows the most. Are you suggesting _Kyle_?”

Kyle was offended. “What’s wrong with me leading the group?”

“You’d fight with me the whole time, Jew,” Cartman answered. “Even I knew that.”

Stan and a few others nodded, and Kyle’s mind began whirring with reasons he didn’t care about for why he _should_ actually be in charge of the discussion.

“I think Token should do it,” Craig continued like Kyle hadn’t interrupted. How people usually spoke, really. “Your friend group is the one that always gets embroiled in stupid shit. Why should one you guys lead?”

“Because they know what’s going on,” Token said rationally.

Clyde pointed at Token as evidence. “Look! He’s so fair he’s even aware he shouldn’t lead! Token is _perfect_.”

“I don’t want to manage this shit show,” Token said, holding his hands up to demonstrate how desperately he wanted to steer clear of this whole situation. “Let Wendy do it.”

Craig gave another theatrical sigh, and Clyde scowled, but they both turned back to Wendy. Clyde tossed the basketball on the ground and walked over to Craig’s chair, nudging him until he pulled his legs up enough for Clyde to sit there. Token sank down onto the bench next to Jimmy, and the five boys looked around like Kyle and his friends were weird for not taking any of the occupied sitting spots.

Stan didn’t seem troubled by the cold welcome from the people who were supposed to be their closest acquaintance-friends, and he took a seat cross-legged at Wendy’s feet. Tweek conceded to let Butters and Kenny sit with their backs against his lawn chair, and Clyde even gestured for Bebe to sit on his lap, an offer which she giggled at and accepted. Neither Kyle nor Cartman seemed willing to relinquish all the attention to Wendy, but, when Heidi asked Cartman quietly if they could sit on his coat together, he complied, leaving Kyle to glare at Wendy in a silent face-off until he dropped down to join Stan.

“Okay,” Wendy said again in the same sweet, firm tone she used to lead class assemblies. “Let’s go through all the solid facts we have. All sightings were today in the forest, right? No one else has seen anything weird?”

There were murmurs of dissent, and she continued. “The only people seen were Kyle, Cartman, Tweek, and Craig, right? We were all at the forest. If they look like us, we might not have known.”

“Then we don’t know, do we?” Craig asked like this was all very tedious.

Wendy didn’t say anything for long enough to Craig to start looking a bit uncomfortable. This was a technique Kyle had seen teachers use before. When Craig had finally looked down to the ground in mild embarrassment, Wendy said, “I think you and Tweek should be two of the _most_ concerned because we _know_ they’re trying to kill their other selves.”

“Yeah, you assholes just got lucky because even Monster Craig is an apathetic dick,” Kyle added.

Clyde raised a hand. Wendy looked a little confused, but she pointed at him. “Maybe it was just those four, and it’s over now?” he asked hopefully.

Kyle shook his head before the Official Group Leader could speak. “The other Kyle told me that _someone_ would kill Cartman, and he said people preferred not to kill themselves. That suggests there are a lot more of them.”

“Thank you, Wendy Testaburger,” Token said under his breath.

Wendy clapped her hands a few times to restore order. “Alright, you guys. Right now we’re working with the four we have. Obviously they were not perfect clones of us, so that begs the question: what was different? There might be rhythm or rhyme to the clones we’re going to be dealing with that we should know about. Let’s start with Kyle. He was the first specimen we found; who here met the other Kyle?”

She was really going to make them go through this whole thing over again, Kyle realized with a roll of his eyes, but he and Cartman raised their hands. Wendy nodded again like she wasn’t surprised by this answer; that would make sense because she had absolutely no reason to be surprised. “And what would you guys say were the major differences?”

Kyle responded, “Hat,” just as Cartman said, “Jew.”

Stan snorted. “He was gay for Cartman.”

“Were you there, Stan?” Cartman demanded.

“Yeah, Stan! We were going to get to that!” Kyle said, hating himself for backing up Cartman. “That is a fact, though. He was gay for Cartman. He even had Cartman’s gun.”

Clyde tapped his chin thoughtfully. “On a scale of Stan to Craig, how gay for Cartman was he?”

Craig pointed at Kenny’s Disney Princess-style wig and fur coat; “ _I’m_ a ten for gayness? Me? Because I take pride in my appearance?”

“I hardly see how that’s relevant,” Kyle said scathingly. “They were gay. He also mentioned having killed other Kyles, and he said I wasn’t as smart as most of them.”

“Also, they were Jews,” Cartman stressed again. “He was definitely surprised that Kyle was Christian.”

“I mean, ‘Broflovski,’” Token said. “Did none of you guys get that?”

“We don’t all know your fancy-pants name etymologies, _Token_ ,” Cartman snapped.

“Good!” Wendy said loudly. “We’ve discussed Kyle. Let’s stop conversations when they’re done, you guys. Who here met skinny Cartman?” She raised her own hand.

Cartman looked affronted. “You called the other Kyle ‘ _other Kyle_ ,’ but mine has to be ‘skinny Cartman?’”

“Okay, who here met gay Cartman?” Wendy asked, looking around the group.

Stan snickered and raised his hand, followed by Kyle, Butters, Kenny, and eventually Cartman himself.

“This seems like a waste of time,” Craig said. “We know the answer to all these questions is going to be some iteration of _you six_ .” He sounded like he found the lot of them distasteful. “Kyle and Cartman may be a stone’s throw away from ripping each other’s clothes off – I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care, but I am _not_ a gargantuan monster who swings a club and gets beaten by _Kenny McCormick_.”

“You _are_ tall,” Clyde said. “Maybe not, y’know, terrifying, but you’re a tall dude.”

Craig sniffed. “I’m built like a runway model. Not an ogre.”

It was true, and Kyle had found he wasn’t all that surprised when Stan informed him that Craig intended to move to New York and become a model after school. If it were anyone else, Kyle would expect them to be selling themselves on a street corner in two years, but Craig seemed confident that his plan would be a success.

“I’m not that short either!” Tweek interjected. Caffeine had stunted his growth pretty badly, with his eyes falling somewhere around Craig’s chin, but their faces were, at the very least, in the vague vicinity of one another’s. “I don’t think you guys saw us! You’re just trying to drag us on a crazy adventure because _you_ don’t want to do it alone, man!”

Wendy was about to snap back a retort when Kenny lifted a hand to silence them, his other hand digging around in a small bag (purse – very obviously a purse) around his shoulder. He tossed a piece of blue fabric on the ground at Craig’s feet, and Craig leaned down to retrieve a chullo hat designed for a significantly bigger skull. He and Tweek exchanged a stony look, and Craig tucked the hat into his bag without another word.

“So,” Wendy said with some finality in her voice. “I think we can extrapolate from these examples that the impostors – “

“Immigrants, you guys! We’ve decided on ‘immigrants!’” Cartman whined.

Wendy clenched her jaw. “These _immigrants_ look like they’re perfect versions of ourselves with a few traits either heightened or eliminated.”

“That still doesn’t tell us how many there are,” Token said. “Yeah, maybe there are Kyle and Cartman because fucked up shit _always_ happens to Kyle and Cartman, and Tweek and Craig are weird, I’ll grant you that, but what about the rest of us?” He gestured at himself, Clyde and Jimmy. “We never get sucked up in this stuff.”

“That’s true. No one gives a shit about Jimmy,” Cartman said agreeably.

Token narrowed his eyes. “Or Heidi, dipshit. This is a very specific brand of weird that happens to _you_ guys. Not us.”

Wendy whistled sharply with her fingers, and a few heads jerked up into attention. She glared at each person in the group one-by-one. “Right now, there are people out there who look like us. Maybe not all of us, I grant you, but some of us. These people want to _kill_ us. Even if there isn’t someone out there looking for you specifically, I would guess that there is someone hunting down the person you care most about in this circle. Kyle, Kenny, Cartman, and I have already killed for this.” It was a testament to how well Wendy could command a group that no one remarked on how easy it must have been for Cartman to kill an immigrant. “We, at least, are going to keep fighting until this stops. Tweek and Craig, we know for a fact that we’ve killed for you. You guys are fools if you think this isn’t going to keep happening, and you’re doomed if you think that we can win without everyone’s help.”

She stopped, and Stan burst into a round of enthusiastic applause, followed by Bebe and Heidi. Jimmy and Clyde were nodding along with what she said, and Token looked grim in his resignation to his fate.  Tweek looked at Craig to make sure they were on the same page, and Craig gave him a ‘what the hell do you want me to do?’ look.

“What I think we should do, then,” Wendy said, pleased with the impact of her words, “is split into little parties to do some scouting for any immigrants we’ve missed.”

“Murder parties,” Cartman said.

Wendy’s eye twitched. “You can call them that, yes. I think each search party – “

“Murder party,” Cartman corrected again.

“Every murder party should be two or three people!” Wendy ordered loudly.

Stan’s hand flew up to Kyle’s shoulder. “Dibs on Kyle and Wendy,” he said quickly.

Wendy gave him a patient smile. “Actually, Stan, I think you and I need to go to Jimbo’s and get some guns. It seems likely that they’ll be armed.”

“So,” Craig said. “You want to send us out to kill them _before_ we’re given weapons? I feel so safe under your leadership.”

“I think I have some steak knives in the kitchen,” Token said helpfully.

Craig looked at him for a long, chilling second before saying, “Get them.”

Token saluted and hurried into the kitchen. “I’ll be on Clyde’s team,” he added before sliding the glass door to his house shut. Clyde looked a little proud of himself like he rarely got confirmation that these guys were his best friends.

“That’s me and Stan going to Jimbo’s, then,” Wendy repeated. “Token and Clyde. Craig, I assume you want to be with Tweek and absolutely no other living creatures?”

Craig raised his chin challengingly. “We’ll take Jimmy, too.”

“L-let’s kick some immigrant ah- _ah-ass_ ,” Jimmy said cheerfully.

Butters intertwined his fingers with Kenny’s and held up their hands in demonstration. “Kenny ‘n’ I can pop some punk ass ‘grants, do you know what I am saying?”

“I do,” Wendy confirmed. “Heidi and Bebe, do you guys want to stay together?”

Clyde bounced his knee a little so Bebe laughed and grabbed his shoulder to steady herself. “Nah, I’ll go with Clyde and Token. Cartman will want to go with Heidi anyway.”

She wrinkled her nose, and Cartman said, “Damn straight.”

Kyle could detect a flicker of pity as Wendy turned to look at him. It took him a second to realize why she looked so guilty, and he groaned, “Yes, I’ll go with fucking Cartman and Heidi,” before she had the chance to force the position on him.

By virtue of Cartman owning a car, the three of them were assigned a search mission to the forest, the original point of contact with the immigrants. Kyle was forced to give up his gun to Bebe because apparently it was unfair for one group to have both the guns, and he was rewarded with a steak knife that made him anxious to carry.

Cartman and Heidi were exactly as awful as they always were. Cartman let her carry the gun even though she would be the least helpful one of them if anyone popped up. They talked about their typical saccharine bullshit, and, just when Kyle couldn’t feel any more like Cartman was dating her because she treated him like Liane, they started singing songs to pass the time. They were down to fifty-two bottles of beer by the time Kyle practically screamed at them to shut up, and the two of them fell into betrayed silence.

Kyle didn’t think they were on edge enough. He almost would have preferred being in Tweek’s group just so that there would be someone who understood his anxiety. Kyle flinched and jumped back whenever he heard a twig snap, although it was only ever Cartman being clumsy with his footsteps. They continued on uselessly for an hour; Cartman dulled Kyle’s steak knife down by carving his and Heidi’s initials into a tree, and Heidi still got to keep the fucking gun.

He was getting to the point where he thought every rustle was just him being paranoid when Heidi gasped loudly. Kyle pointed his knife around wildly (and uselessly) for whatever had startled her, though he wavered slightly when he saw the spitting image of Bebe Stevens emerge from the trees. Her tits were even bigger than usual, and a spaghetti strap of her unseasonable tank top dangled down her shoulder, but she looked just like Bebe plus a few pounds of makeup.

Barbie Bebe: Gun Now Included.

She smiled coyly at Kyle like she did not have a fully loaded gun on him. “I _hate_ when you guys start to catch on. This does _not_ need to be that hard.”

Her voice was deep and throaty, and, with her hand clenched around Cartman’s revolver, Heidi still thought to ask, “Do you want a lozenge?”

“Yeah, are you like trans Bebe?” Cartman asked.

Kyle got the impulse to get as much information as possible on these immigrants, but killing them was still supposed to be the top priority. Bebe looked a little distracted as she rubbed at her throat. “No, it’s okay. I was just giving Clyde head, and brogurt always makes my voice _so_ scratchy.” Bebe laughed. “I sound like I chain smoke, don’t I?”

“Brogurt?” Heidi asked in that sweet, girly way of hers.

Bebe laughed. “You’re a prude just like my Heidi! That is so _cute_. The virgin thing really works for – “

Kyle jumped almost a foot at a loud _bang_ followed by a few others as Heidi’s shots repeatedly missed. He knew giving her the gun was a bad idea. Heidi gave a high-pitched little war yell before Bebe dropped to the ground, and she immediately looked horrified at herself. She thrust the gun into Cartman’s hands like it was burning, and he whispered something supportively to her. Kyle slunk over to the fallen Bebe to retrieve the gun while Cartman held Heidi’s wrists and murmured encouragements.

“Great job, Heidi,” Kyle said once he’d decided that they’d ignored him for a long enough period of time.

Heidi looked physically pained. “I just killed my _best friend_ ,” she said breathlessly. “I just shot her!”

“You actually shot her a lot of times,” Kyle said, receiving a threatening look from Cartman. “Come on, Heidi,” he tried in a softer voice. “You did what we have to do!”

Heidi’s bottom lip quivered dangerously. “She was just being such a poor role model for women, and I killed her! For being sexually liberated! I killed her!”

Kyle furrowed his brows. “You killed her because we explicitly left Token’s yard to come kill her, Heidi. Feminism has nothing to do with this.”

“Feminism has everything to do with everything,” Heidi murmured, giving the corpse one last look before burying her face in Cartman’s shoulder. He carefully placed the gun back in her hands, and she let that arm drop to her side like it weighed a ton. “Oh, let’s just keep going!”

No one looked especially triumphant that their suspicion that there were more immigrants had been proven correct. After seeing Bebe, Kyle felt like the whole thing had been abundantly obvious since the beginning. Kyle had no idea what he would do when it came down to someone like Stan; he wondered who was going to get stuck with that job. Knowing their luck, it would be  Wendy or himself.

The light conversation had died as they continued to scour the forest. Heidi and Kyle had their guns out the entire time, and Cartman kept making little stabbing motions with his knife like he wanted to have the movement down when the time came.

As they got closer to the waterfall, it got more difficult to listen for noises in the forest. Kyle was becoming increasingly uneasy that this was the perfect location for someone to sneak up on them, but he didn’t need to worry about sneaks. Over the roar of the water, he could plainly hear thunderous footsteps against the forest bed and the whirring of an overactive motor.

Heidi came crashing into Kyle, almost knocking him to the ground as his arms flew around her instinctively to catch her. He noticed belatedly that there was a crater in the ground where she had been standing, and Cartman had his knife outstretched uselessly. Heidi was about to hide her face in Kyle’s chest for protection when Kyle spun her around. “You were given a gun!” he ordered brusquely. “Fucking use it!”

From a dense pack of trees, a machine of a man stomped into the clearing. Strapped into silver, biomechatronic skeleton was Jimmy Valmer. His useless legs were hidden by what looked like a full suit of armor, and one arm ended in a cuff that must have released the explosive. Kyle’s mind went completely blank, forgetting the instructions he had given Heidi before she started blindly firing at the monster. The bullets all bounced off him harmlessly, and bionic Jimmy didn’t even hesitate as he walked towards the three of them.

“I’m gonna f-fuh- _fuh_ – I’m gonna fuck you guys up,” Jimmy announced, and Kyle threw Heidi on the ground before another blast landed where she had been standing.

Cartman had been edging away from Kyle and Heidi, Kyle assumed out of cowardice, but the last bit of hope drained out of Kyle as Cartman snuck around behind Jimmy and attempted to dig the knife into his suit. It clanged against the metal to no effect, and Jimmy jerked his elbow back into Cartman’s ribs, knocking him off his feet.

Jimmy turned on Cartman, and Kyle hissed, “I think we run now.” Heidi looked like she was about to put up a fight, and Kyle grabbed her elbow, dragging her after him in the direction of the waterfall, the only landmark Kyle could think of as his fight or flight kicked into high gear. There was another explosion behind him, and Heidi gave a little sob. Kyle wrapped an arm around her shoulder, urging her to keep moving as the metallic clank of Jimmy’s footsteps began to follow them purposefully.

Kyle and Heidi skidded to a halt at the precipice of the waterfall. Heidi peered down at the rocks below like she thought Kyle was going to suggest they jump, and Kyle’s heart sank as he accepted his defeat. “On three?” he asked, looking over at Heidi in time to see a big, silver hand closing around her throat.

She was lifted off her feet, kicking wildly as she dangled over the falls, and Kyle barreled into bionic Jimmy, knocking him back with his shoulder. It felt like Kyle had dislocated something, but Cartman was probably dead so at least he didn’t have it the worst in this situation. Heidi managed to wriggle away, and Jimmy made a lunge for Kyle. Kyle jumped back, his foot skidding dangerously in the mud as he teetered over the edge.

Taking a deep breath and reminding himself that dying for the sake of others made him totally awesome, he wrapped an arm around Jimmy’s shell and jerked backwards to send them both tumbling into the rocks below.

He closed his eyes, preparing for the pain of the collision or the emptiness of sudden death. Instead, he felt his collar strangle him for a few seconds, and his feet scrambled back against the muddy ground. Kyle massaged his neck in shock, glancing down at the broken pile of machinery that was Bionic Jimmy before looking back at his savior.

“Thanks for running, Jew,” Cartman said sarcastically. “Really glad to have you on my team.”

“I was saving your girlfriend!” Kyle said, coming to his senses. “Why didn’t Jimmy kill you?”

Cartman put a hand to his heart reminiscently. “Jimmy knows what it’s like to have opportunistic friends leave him behind. I think he felt _bad_ for me.”

“So he decided to kill you third,” Kyle finished dully.

“Exactly!” Cartman crowed, pulling Heidi into a hug. “You okay, babe? Did he get you?”

“I thought you were dead!” Heidi sobbed, tightening her grip around Cartman. Kyle felt the need to look away from such clear emotion from the two of them; no one could actually _like_ Cartman, right? “Eric, baby, do you think the others made it out okay?”

He rubbed her arm gently. “I’m sure everyone’s okay,” he said in a voice much softer than anything Kyle had ever heard him use. “I think we’ve had enough of this for the day, though. Let’s get back to Token’s.”

Kyle looked around suspiciously. “You don’t think there are more out here? We’ve found a lot in this forest.”

“They’ll be looking for us, too,” Cartman said. “I’m sure they’ll come find us before too long.”

It was a dark thought, but Kyle was ready to call it a day and go find the others. They had gone through plenty of fucked up shit together, but he couldn’t honestly say that he’d ever returned home with absolutely no idea of whether or not his friends were alive.

Neither Kyle nor Heidi let go of their guns once for the entire car trip home, and Cartman left his knife on the dashboard in a way that, if not technically unsafe, would certainly get them pulled over by the cops. When they pulled into Token’s driveway, Stan and Wendy were already hovering by the gate, both with a cardboard box tucked under their arms, and Kenny was balanced on Butters back, trying to jump the fence.

Kyle stepped out of the car just as Kenny scrambled over the fence and opened the gate for the others with a victorious smile. Butters threw his arms around Kyle in relief as soon as he saw him, and Stan pulled him in for a bro handshake, giving him a brief nod to say ‘you’re my very best friend in the whole world, and I’d have died if something had happened to you.’

Wendy shoved her box of guns into Kenny’s arms, racing to hug Heidi. “Oh, babe, are you okay?”

“I killed Bebe,” Heidi gasped out before bursting into a fresh bout of tears. Wendy stroked her hair comfortingly, murmuring things Kyle couldn’t make out. “And then Jimmy almost killed Eric, but it wasn’t Jimmy! It was like a machine!”

“Bionic Jimmy,” Kyle confirmed at Stan’s questioning look. Wendy’s eyebrows shot up, and Stan grimaced.

“So Jimmy and Bebe are dead?” Wendy asked, still holding Heidi into her chest like she wanted to shelter her from the conversation. “You guys didn’t see Token’s or Craig’s group coming back, did you?”

Kyle shook his head. “No. Did you guys get anyone?”

“Kenny and I got Stan and Clyde!” Butters said proudly. “At first I thought they were the real Clyde and Stan, and then I thought to myself, ‘you _know_ Stan and Clyde went in different groups,’ and _then_ I thought, ‘Stan thinks Letterman jackets are for douches,’ and then Kenny killed them both.”

“Good work, Butters,” Cartman said after a short pause. “And you guys just got guns?”

“No, the other Wendy was waiting at Jimbo’s for us, and on the way back, we found…” Stan trailed off guiltily, looking to Wendy for her to finish the thought.

“We got Wendy and Heidi,” Wendy said emotionlessly. “That leaves Token, Butters, and Kenny to split between two groups.”

Kyle allowed himself a tired smile. “We might have actually won this.”

Wendy returned the look. “It seems that way, doesn’t it?”

A silver car pulled into the driveway, and Tweek hopped out with a pair of crutches to help Jimmy. Craig pulled off his sunglasses for dramatic effect (and because the sky had been dark for almost a few hours by that point) as he strode up to the group. “So all of you guys are alive,” he said like he was disappointed. “Good adventure? Fun? Over now?”

Wendy pursed her lips. “Is this your way of saying you spent all day _not_ helping us?”

Craig shrugged. “If I’d seen any, I would’ve killed them.” He brushed past Kenny, waving for the others to follow. “Why are we just waiting outside his gate? Token won’t care.”

“You’ve already broken in, anyway!” Tweek said.

Jimmy, at least, had the decency to look ashamed when Wendy and Kyle summarized the fights that had gone down. Butters assured the group that he and Kenny had taken care of their immigrants real good, and no one forced any more details out of the two of them. Craig seemed surprised that Jimmy was being included in this ‘game,’ and Kyle thought it made him look even less convinced than he had that afternoon. Tweek looked tense and was probably desperate for Craig to start taking this seriously, but he remained quiet and unrepentant while Wendy lectured the three of them for their laziness and irresponsibility.

An hour went by before people started getting really fidgety. No one wanted to be the first person to suggest that Token, Clyde, and Bebe probably hadn’t made it back. It was simply too good a yield to hope that they could’ve killed everyone’s doppelgänger without losing any men in the process. In no place was the growing fear more apparent than in Craig’s jaw, which had been tightening all night to the point that he was grinding his teeth more than Tweek on a bad day. Wendy spent the whole time pacing back and forth while Stan watched her sadly. Kyle wanted to suggest that they all sit down and remain as calm as possible, but there was no way he could’ve taken that advice if it had been his own best friends failing to return home from a murder mission.

There was a loud cheer, and Tweek jumped to his feet as Clyde came barreling into him for a breath-squeezing hug. A look of pure relief crossed Craig’s face before he caught sight of Token and Bebe walking into the backyard, and it became safe to sink back into apathy. He even deigned to stand up and shake Token’s hand. Bebe ran to Wendy, and they hugged tightly; Heidi attached herself to the two of them, apologizing profusely to Bebe for killing her slutty alter ego, a concern that Bebe found hilarious.

“We got Token and Butters,” Bebe reported once the girls had finished celebrating their lives. “You guys should have seen Butters. He basically apologized for trying to kill us, and he congratulated Token for winning the fight. It was _ridiculous_.”

Clyde laughed loudly; the three of them were in much better spirits than the other groups had been. “What about Token, dude? Token was _hard core_ angry black man. When we shot him, he went – “ Clyde paused, gasping for breath through his laughter, “ – Token, do the voice.”

Token smirked. “He went, ‘ _aw, hell nah!’_ ”

“With a _finger waggle_ ,” Clyde said emphatically. He and Bebe both mimicked the finger waggle before succumbing to laughter again. “This is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me. Did someone kill other Clyde?”

Kenny raised a hand, and Clyde nodded at him. “Good man.”

“So we’re done now?” Tweek asked hopefully. “We’ve killed everyone!”

“Not everyone,” Butters said in a small voice, giving Kenny a fearful look.

“Kenny’s no match for all of us,” Stan said dismissively. “I say we call it a victory.”

Kenny raised his eyes to meet Stan’s, and Butters said, “I wouldn’t underestimate Kenny if I were ya, Stan.”

“We can’t underestimate _any_ of them,” Wendy said in a strong voice. “Someone needs to go find the other Kenny _immediately_.”

Cartman clapped Heidi on the shoulder and lumbered to his feet. “I’ll go get the pov. You in it, Jew?”

Kyle pointed to himself questioningly, already answering to Cartman’s new name for him. “Why would _I_ want to come with you?”

Cartman looked genuinely puzzled. “Because we’re a team?”

“We’re not a team!”

“You guys have kind of been a team,” Stan said diplomatically. “It’s not the worst thing in the world, Kyle.”

“We’re a team, Stan!” Kyle yelled. “Why the fuck am I stuck with Cartman?”

Cartman held up two fingers. “This is how many times I’ve saved your life today. We’re a team, and we’re going to go kill Kenny.” Stan threw him a gun from the box underhand, and Cartman caught it. “Let’s move out.”

Kyle swore fluently under his breath, standing up against his better judgment. “Tomorrow, I’m on Stan’s team.”

Wendy, in Kyle’s opinion, looked a little too proud of herself.

The fence around Token’s yard was high enough to prevent prying neighbors from looking in on the Black family. What had felt like a barrier between them and all the monsters outside began to feel more like a trap, leaving them blind to the rest of the world, as something started pounding steadily on the opposite side of the fence. The kicking stopped for a second to be replaced by the sound of someone throwing their entire weight into the fence, and a new arrival stepped carefully through the freshly made hole.

This immigrant must have read enough comic books to know better than to give a spiel before taking action. Kyle didn’t have time to examine their foe. He heard a gun go off, and Craig screamed. Kyle whipped around instinctively to point his gun at Craig, who was dripping in dark, red blood. His face was stark white, but he looked unharmed. His arms, however, were wrapped around Token supportively, who decidedly did _not_ look unharmed.

Wendy yelped, and Kyle tore his gaze away from Craig and Token just in time to see the immigrant wrap an arm around her neck from behind and pull her against his chest. Everything came to a standstill as the group’s focus split between Token’s injury and the parka-clad gunman’s grip on Wendy. The only noises were Token’s wet gasps for air and Craig’s quiet sobs, and the gunman said something that was muffled completely by his hood.

“All gone,” Kenny responded quietly. He stood up and wiped something off his cheek that Kyle worried was Token’s blood.

The gunman said something else and laughed. Kenny stepped in front of Butters protectively and said, “Good odds.”

It shouldn’t have been surprising when the man used his free hand to pull his hood down around his neck and show them Kenny McCormick’s face. He lacked the delicate androgyny of Kyle’s own Kenny with a heavyset jaw, crooked nose, and busted teeth. Judging from the look on his face, he was not impressed by his effeminate twin. “Butters, dude?” He asked with a semi-hysterical laugh.

“Butters,” Kenny confirmed.

The other Kenny sneered. “Take that wig off. You look pathetic.”

Kenny twirled a strand of hair around his finger thoughtfully. Even his doppelgänger looked irritated. “Do you fucking talk?”

“Sure,” Kenny said.

They sized each other up in silence. Kenny had just opened his mouth to say something when Stan launched himself onto the impostor Kenny, wrestling him to the ground and giving Wendy the chance to crawl away. Kyle braced himself for sudden death at the flurry of gunshots exploding away from Stan and imitation Kenny. Distantly, he heard Clyde yelp like a dog with its tail stepped on, but he was far too preoccupied with the image of Kenny’s manlier facsimile climbing to his feet over a defeated Stan.

He aimed at Stan expressionlessly, finger quivering on the trigger, then jerked his hand up to send a bullet whizzing past Kyle and Craig directly at Kenny. Kyle shut his eyes before he could see the bullet meet its target. He could hear the hollow thump of a successful shot, and a body dropped heavily to the floor. Someone yowled, but it wasn’t Butters. Kyle forced his eyes open to see Kenny’s likeness shaking his arm wildly as Tweek clung on. The gun slipped from Kenny’s grip, and Tweek sank his teeth into Kenny’s neck like he was trying to give him the world’s most aggressive hickey.

Wendy darted forward to retrieve his gun, but no one dared move with Tweek so close to their target. The Kenny double gave a roar of pain and lurched forwards, throwing Tweek a few feet in the air. Tweek made a choking noise as he landed on his ass and coughed up something bloody onto the ground. Kyle was terrified for a moment that Tweek had bitten off his tongue when his attention was drawn back to the fake Kenny, who had his hand covering a gaping hole in his neck as blood gushed down his skin and stained his parka.

Wendy and Cartman both seized the opportunity to start shooting, something Kyle was too shocked to even think about at the moment, but the other Kenny dodged them swiftly, and they didn’t have the luxury of not caring where they aimed.

The blood loss must have been slowing him down, but the impostor Kenny did not concede defeat as easily as the other immigrants. He threw himself into Kenny, pulling his wig off and tossing it aside in the scuffle like he was giving Kenny the honor of not dying in drag. Wendy motioned for Cartman to stop shooting for fear of hitting the real Kenny, and Kyle stood there uselessly as the two boys writhed around on the ground.

Kenny’s doppelgänger managed to get his hands around his throat, and he leaned in to whisper something in Kenny’s ear that got Kenny to start kicking and twisting with renewed passion. Kyle could see Cartman muttering something to himself while he assessed how clear his shot at the other Kenny was, but no one else was making a move to intervene. Kyle didn’t even dare look at Craig and Token, too sure he already knew how their stories had ended up.

His attempts at kicking the other Kenny off got feebler as the clone’s grip around his neck tightened. Right before Kyle had fully given up hope, there was a loud _crack_ , and the look-alike collapsed on top of their Kenny.

Butters smacked him a few more times with a long, black stick with an intricately carved rat’s head at the end before Kenny said, “oof,” and Butters stepped back. He snapped the cane in half – who the fuck sold foldable pimp canes? – and tossed it on the ground. Kenny pushed the immigrant off his chest with great effort and, still massaging his throat, climbed to his feet so Butters could knock him down again with a hug.

“Jesus Christ, Kenny!” Butters cried, starting to sob now that the worst was over. “You could have died!”

“Yeah,” Kenny agreed, staring at the unmoving body next to him. “I could’ve.”

“You guys,” Clyde said in a strangled voice. “You guys.”

Craig was okay.

In that sense, Kyle supposed they had gotten lucky.

He was on his knees with his body hovering over Token’s protectively. Craig’s own clothing was soaked with blood, and he had a few splatters on his face. Kyle had never seen him look so completely decimated in his whole life. He rocked back and forth, clutching at Token’s arms so tightly his knuckles turned white. Clyde approached the two of them slowly, and Craig’s gaze snapped up like he was prepared to fight for Token’s body until he realized who it was.

Clyde opened his mouth noiselessly, and Craig nodded. He dropped down next to Craig, testing Token’s pulse with a shaking hand before burying his face in Token’s stomach and sinking into gut-wrenching sobs. Tweek crawled over to them hesitantly, spitting a last mouthful of blood on the ground and pulling Craig into his arms.

“This is real,” Kyle heard Craig whisper brokenly, and Tweek nodded.

“Is T-Token okay?” Jimmy called from across the yard. He must’ve gotten knocked down during the other Kenny’s mindless shooting spree.

Heidi, looking desperate to be helpful, walked over to Jimmy and crouched down next to him. “He got Jimmy’s legs,” she reported in a shaking voice. “Does anyone have something we can use to tie it off?”

“Well, no loss there,” Cartman said jokingly. No one looked amused so he kissed the top of Heidi’s head and ambled off to the shed to look for rope.

Bebe sank down onto one of the lawn chairs and buried her face in her hands as she shook with silent sobs, and Kyle’s feet brought him to sit next to her on autopilot. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she got snot all over his jacket. Wendy whispered something to Stan, and, together, they hoisted up Kenny’s corpse and carried him away from Clyde, Craig, Tweek and Token. Cartman returned from the garage with twine and helped Heidi tie up Jimmy’s injured leg while his questions about Token got more and more hysterical.

“Token’s fucking dead, Jimmy!” Craig shouted finally. “Will someone just tell him that Token’s dead?”

That effectively shut Jimmy up, and Heidi laid a hand to his chest in an attempt to calm down the vicious trembling that overtook him.

No one said anything for a very long time, too scared to interfere with the grieving process. Jimmy had been staring at the sky mutely since Craig’s outburst, and Tweek had somehow become the rock of their friend group. Wendy suggested that they move Token’s body; Clyde threw himself across the corpse, and Craig gave a feral growl as Wendy came close enough to touch him.

After waiting a respectful period of time, Cartman said, “We should’ve guessed it’d be the black one first.”

Craig roared with anger, and Clyde looked at Cartman like he had never seen him before. “One day, Cartman, you’re going to be in this position, and none of us are going to fight for you,” Clyde said seriously. “And when you die, I’m going to look at Craig and say, ‘well, it’s not surprising they caught the fat one,’ and we will go on with our days.”

“Are you gonna use my body as a human shield, too?” Cartman asked cruelly. “Toss me in front of a bullet like a sack of meat? He could’ve been alive, you know.”

Craig was shaking with fury. Now that Kyle could think clearly, he was starting to understand why that bullet the intruder had shot at Kenny both hadn’t missed and hadn’t killed Kenny. In the depths of his despair, Craig had done the only thing he could think of to help Kenny. He hadn’t been sure of whether Token was dying or dead; there was a bullet that had to be taken, and Craig had thrown his friend in front of it.

“Thank you, Craig,” Kenny said earnestly, still intertwined with Butters.

Butters nuzzled Kenny affectionately. “I can’t thank ya enough, Craig. I don’t know what I’d do without Kenny. I think you can understand that.” He smiled at Tweek. “You, too, Tweek!”

“Yeah, Tweek was bad _ass_ ,” Cartman said appreciatively.

“Do not speak to him,” Craig said coldly. “I’m going to pretend you’re not here until you actually aren’t, okay?”

“Cartman just has a unique form of grieving,” Heidi protested. “We’re all very sorry about – “

“You’re sorry?” Craig asked. “You’re _sorry_ that you dragged us into a game we didn’t want to play, got Jimmy shot, possibly gave Tweek an STD from swallowing Kenny’s blood, and then killed my best friend? Your apologies are really helpful in these trying times.”

“Okay, does Jimmy getting shot really matter?” Cartman asked.

“Shut up!” Clyde roared, tearing his wild eyes away from Token’s corpse. “Shut _up_ , Cartman! You are a bad person, and we want you to leave!”

Tweek chewed his bottom lip nervously before flipping Cartman off.

“We need to stay together,” Wendy said weakly. “I know this is… a lot, you guys. This was a really, really awful thing that happened, but it’s still us against them. Cartman didn’t kill Token.”

Craig widened his eyes disbelievingly. “‘A really awful thing?’ I’ll listen to your opinion when it’s Stan or Bebe. Until then, we are _out_ of this game.”

Tweek cleared his throat. “No, we aren’t, Craig.”

“What?”

“We’re still in this game,” Tweek repeated firmly. “Token is dead! I bit off a chunk of someone’s neck! This isn’t the kind of thing we can walk away from!” He grabbed Craig’s arm. “Can’t we just listen to her so it’s not you or Clyde next time?”

“Or Jimmy,” Clyde whispered with his cheek against Token’s chest.

“She has no idea what the fuck is going on!” Craig protested. “Look, we’ve killed them all. Nothing has changed except one of the only people here who _didn’t suck_ is _gone_. This was a long, painful exercise in futility.”

Kyle was inclined to agree that he thought something would happen after their ‘victory,’ and Wendy looked similarly troubled. She walked over to the impostor Kenny and pressed two fingers against the intact side of his neck. “He still has a pulse,” she reported, standing back up.

Cartman reached for his gun, but Tweek made a wordless noise to stop him. He crawled over to the boxes to retrieve a gun and brought it back to Craig dutifully, placing his arms around Craig so he could guide his arms to aim the gun at Kenny’s near-lifeless corpse and shoot. Craig let the gun fall softly to the grass and leaned back into Tweek’s embrace.

Kyle realized that he had been holding his breath for something to happen and let it out in disappointment. He didn’t know why he had been expecting something official; that wasn’t the way real life worked. Weird things would show up, and they would fight to maintain the status quo. There was no beginning, middle, and ending. There was only life and the lack thereof.

Then Kyle heard buzzing like TV static in his ears, and a deep voice shook the yard.

“ _Level Two_.”


End file.
